Chuck does his best to avoid me all throughout dinner and in the aftermath. But when his parents and Nana Fern leave, and Mom and Dad say goodnight, he has nowhere left to run.
“Why don’t we go to bed as well, Honey?” I ask in my sweetest, I’m-going-to-murder-you voice.
Chuck sighs and follows me upstairs.
The moment he closes the door, I wheel on him. “Why did you tell the entire town we’re engaged? What is wrong with you?!”
“It was an accident.”
I cross my arms, glaring at him. “You mean to tell me that, in a single day, you’ve managed to both accidentally propose to me and accidentally tell the entire town about it? What’s on the agenda for tomorrow: accidentally marrying me over breakfast?”
“I was trying to do damage control,” Chuck says. He feeds me a story about his friends thinking I cheated on him at Halloween, and how he had to tell them about the engagement to save my reputation. Then he brings up a new investment our parents made in the factory specifically for the Chucokate.
I sit on the bed and massage my temples as he finally stops talking. The urge to murder him is gone. He’s just too sincere in his rambling explanations for all the drama he’s caused to be intentional.
“Okay,” I eventually say.
He peers at me suspiciously. “Okay? That’s it?”
“You could’ve handled it better, obviously, but there’s not much we can do about it now. Fact remains that we’re in an even bigger mess than before. We need to set the record straight with both our families and the entire town—and all without ruining the Chucokate brand and costing our parents hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Chuck groans, and flops down on his side of the bed. “It’d be a lot easier if they just chose another couple to represent the stupid Chucokate. There’s got to be someone out there better suited to be brand ambassadors than us.”
“That could solve the business sides of things, maybe. But our parents would still be obsessed about us getting married.”
We sit in silence for at least a minute, both lost in our own thoughts. Then, out of the blue, the perfect solution hits me. “That’s it!”
“What’s it?”
“We’ve been tackling the problem from the wrong angle. The key is for our parents to not want us to be together!”
Chuck turns this over in his mind for a few seconds. “Because if they hated the idea of us as a couple, it’d be a relief rather than a tragedy when we called off the engagement…”
“Plus, they definitely wouldn’t want us as their brand ambassadors, which means we’d be off the hook completely.”
“The Chucokate would tank,” Chuck warns.
I wave my hand at him. “The Chucokate isn’t coming out for another two months. There’s enough time to adjust the campaign. Maybe it won’t be a smashing success, but it won’t tank either.”
He chews on his lower lip, something he does when he’s thinking hard. “So we just have to be the worst couple in the world, without making it obvious what we’re doing. How are we supposed to manage that?”
“No clue. Luckily, there’s no problem Google can’t solve.”
I take out my phone and search for the top reasons parents don’t like their kids’ significant other.
The first search result is a too specific, non-replicable article full of parents complaining about their daughters’ boyfriends. “He deflowered my sweet angel… He stole her from us…” Reason number three makes me chuckle. “Listen to this—Over dinner last week, my daughter’s Significant Other wouldn’t stop talking about Star Trek. I’ve shunned him from the house. Forever.”
I glance pointedly at Chuck, and he glowers at me. “I’m obsessed with Star Wars, not Star Trek,” he notes. “And I know how to carry on a conversation like a normal human being, thank you very much.”
“Star Whatever, the quote is still funny.”
“You say that because you’ve never given the movies a fair chance. If you’d only—”
I stop him with a raised hand before he can advocate what an interesting character Jabba the Hutt is. I’ve seen pictures—big, ugly slug guy. No thank you. “I wasn’t interested in your science fiction flicks when we were together, and I’m not interested in them now. Save your breath.”
“Your loss.”
The next article I find presents a more legitimate list.
“Personality issues… No, that won’t work, they adore you. Physical appearance, nope. Socioeconomic status, no. Race, no. Cultural differences, no. Career, no. Oh, for heaven’s sake, according to this we’re perfect for each other!”
Chuck looks like he’s about to say something in response, but he wisely keeps his mouth shut.
Just when I’m about to despair, I read the last line. “Other life choices, like the willingness to start a family. That’s it!”
A smile slowly appears on Chuck’s face. “Our moms are obsessed with having grandkids.”
“Exactly. Imagine how they’d feel if we told them one of us didn’t want kids. They’d force us to split up on the spot.”
“One problem: you want to tell your mom you don’t want to have a baby? Because I sure won’t tell mine.”
“Hmm… Yeah, that’s fair. Okay… What if we couldn’t have kids?”
“What do you mean?”
“We tell them we did a test on campus, we just got the results back, and you’re sterile.”
Chuck shakes his head firmly. “Nu-uh, my mom would die of heartbreak, and so would yours. And besides, they’d just insist we adopt or something. It wouldn’t solve a thing.”
“No, you’re right.” I deflate. “But we need to find a solution. This situation is making me sick to my stomach.”
I rack my brain a little longer but exclude one possibility after the other… unless… “Of course, the easiest thing would be to tell them you cheated on me, they wouldn’t force me to take you back after that. And that’s why you proposed, so I’d forgive you, and I said yes because I got lost in the romance of the moment, but then once my mind cooled off I realized we’re no longer right for each other. It would make total sense.”
Chuck scoffs. “Yeah, right.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That if we must invent an affair, you should be the cheater.”
“Why?”
“Because you started dating Marco, what, a week after you dumped me? Plus, a rumor is already spreading around town that you cheated on me, so it’d be perfect.”
Anger heats my cheeks. “Just so we’re clear, I did not cheat on you.”
“I’m not saying you did. But you have to admit you moved on at light speed.”
I don’t owe him explanations, and I’m done with this conversation. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow. I’m going to bed.”
“Fine. I need to use the bathroom anyway.” Chuck storms out of the room.
I grab a pillow, smoosh it against my face, and scream into it.